Dan Gleeson is running out of words to express his exasperation with the circumstances that he and Cambridge City find themselves in at present, and anyone who witnessed Saturday's 4-1 defeat at home to Redditch United would understand why.

Debateable refereeing decisions played their part, but so too did a catalogue of mistakes which cost City dear and could have cost them even more had Redditch been more clinical in front of goal.

Among those errors were a needless red card for David Femiola when the opposition had just been reduced to 10 men with the score at 1-1, while two of three penalties the Lilywhites conceded were also avoidable.

City are second from bottom in the Evo-Stik League Southern, Premier Division and they will need to learn quickly from the kind of errors of judgement that characterised much of Saturday's performance.

Gleeson said: "It's frustrating because one minute you think you've cracked it – you get a clean sheet and you get a positive response in two tough games against Slough and Banbury.

"Then today we didn't deserve anything. One week you've got two or three players who seem to be listening and learning, the next week it's two different ones and the ones you think are improving slump back again.

"We have to have 11 players competing week after week, and if we haven't got that we aren't good enough."

After going behind to Luke Shearer's goal during an opening spell that Redditch dominated, City were given a let-off in the 19th minute when Shearer's penalty was saved by Enol Ordonez.

And the game appeared to have reached a turning point moments later when visiting skipper Duane Courtney was shown a straight red card for elbowing Cemal Ramadan on the edge of the penalty area.

Tunde Adewunmi then scored directly from the resulting free kick, and the momentum seemed to be with City.

That lasted just two minutes however, as David Femiola picked up a second yellow card for a foul on Danico Johnson.

The incident, and the performance that followed until the final whistle, undermined the good work that City had built up, not just in this game but against Slough and Banbury.

A questionable penalty scored by Johnson on the stroke of half time after Jack Uttridge was adjudged to have bundled Johnson over, and goals from substitute Apostolis Apostocopoulos and Max Loveridge left Gleeson having to reassess the quality of his squad.

"If we performed like we did in the last two games we would have won," he said.

"But we have to be consistent and we have to start winning games.

"Something needs to change. I need to bring players in and I'll do that this week.

"We're in a relegation battle as it stands. We've got more than enough to get out of it but I need to add a few new faces to improve (the squad)."

It could have been even worse for City had Shearer converted a penalty that Redditch were awarded in the 62nd minute after he was tripped by Jon Kaye.

The post came to City's rescue, and with the scores still at 2-1 at the time, there was still some hope that City could get back into the game.

But the mistakes continued, and Redditch were only too happy to take advantage.

"Once we got level at 1-1 I felt if anyone was going to win the game it would be us," continued Gleeson, whose team are away to Hitchin Town tonight.

"But then we commit an absolute crime (Femiola's sending off) and level the game up at 10 versus 10.

"I've said before they're young players, but they've played a lot of games at this level. It's no excuse.